Author: Joyce Grant

Science

Scientists Discover Cause Of Irish Potato Famine

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It’s well known that in the 1840s, Ireland suffered from a disaster known as the Irish potato famine.

“Famine” means a “shortage of food.”

More than a quarter of the population of Ireland died or left the country from 1845 to 1852 because of the famine.

For much of the country at the time, potatoes were the main source of food.

The famine had a big effect on Ireland; for one thing, its population is not yet back to pre-famine levels.

The famine happened because the country’s potatoes caught a disease.

At the time, no one knew what the disease was or how to cure it.

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Environment News

NBA Star Donates $1-Million To Oklahoma Relief Efforts

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To help his home city “bounce back” after a terrible storm, NBA player Kevin Durant has donated $1-million.

The number of people harmed by a recent tornado in the U.S. state of Oklahoma was greatly reduced, thanks to a special early-warning system.

On Monday, a major tornado hit Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City.

A tornado is a violent storm that usually looks like a whirling funnel.

Residents were warned there was a big storm coming, and possibly a tornado, days before it arrived.

When it actually hit, sirens blared, giving people a 16-minute head start to find shelter.

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News

Hadfield Arrives Back On Earth; Videos From His Incredible Journey

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In Chris Hadfield’s own words, he is, “safely home—back on Earth, happily readapting to the heavy pull of gravity.”

The Canadian astronaut left Earth to live on the International Space Station (ISS) late last December.

He touched down in Kazakhstan on Monday at 10:31 p.m. (EDT), along with two other astronauts who had been on the ISS.

He will now undergo extensive medical testing to help his body adjust to life on Earth again.

In the five months he was living on the ISS, Chris Hadfield changed the way we all relate to space.

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Health

Many Celeb Chefs’ Recipes Not Healthy: Study

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Celebrity chefs serve up amazing food that tastes great and is good for you, right?

Research shows that most people believe that food created by famous chefs is generally healthy.

Well, maybe not.

Some researchers at Coventry University in Britain took a look at 904 recipes written by 26 celebrity chefs.

A celebrity chef is a chef who has become famous and popular—often because of they’re on a TV show or own a famous restaurant.

More than 85 per cent of the recipes the researchers tested “fell substantially short of the UK government’s healthy eating recommendations,” according to a media release on the Coventry University website. Most of the recipes called for ingredients that are known to contribute to health problems like obesity and heart disease.

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Animals News

Non-Venomous Python Found In Winnipeg Dumpster

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A Winnipeg resident was surprised on Tuesday to discover a five-foot Ball python in a dumpster behind an apartment building.

The snake is not poisonous.

The resident called police; one of the officers used a small recycling box to corral and hold the snake.

The police then called the city’s animal services department.

They came right away and rescued the animal.

Ball pythons are a bit smaller than most pythons. Ball pythons are about one metre long.

Police said that finding a snake in this way is extremely rare—it almost never happens.

The person who discovered the snake had been putting out their garbage and heard a noise; they saw a snake moving around.

The snake will be held until a good home can be found for it.

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Kids Science

Chris Hadfield Sings With Hundreds Of Thousands Of Schoolchildren

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I’m watching history happen, right in front of my eyes.

It’s 12:30 Eastern Time on Monday, May 6.

On my computer screen, I’m watching a live satellite feed from space.

An astronaut is singing and playing guitar. He’s singing a song he wrote (with Canadian songwriter Ed Robertson from the band the Barenaked Ladies) called I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing)?

But the really exciting part is something I can’t see. Hundreds of thousands of children in Canada and throughout the world are also singing, right at this moment, singing the very same song.

It’s part of Music Monday, which is an annual event in Canada that began in 2005. Each year, a song is chosen and school children across the country learn it so they can sing it at the same time on the same day.

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Kids

Artist Draws Superheroes Inspired By Girls

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Artist Alex Law believes kids know best what a superhero should look like.

So, in a new online project she calls “Little Girls Are Better At Designing Superheroes Than You” she’s taken her inspiration from girls.

“I remember being a young girl myself and being unsatisfied with the female characters available to me,” she told TKN in an email.

“Most female superheroes are designed and written by adult men, and I don’t think adult men know or even care about what girls like.”

So, when she saw some little girls dressed as their favourite superheroes, she started drawing them.

And she turned them into superheroes.

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News Politics

The Netherlands Gets Its First King In 123 Years

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On Tuesday, the people of the Netherlands got a new king.

That’s because their queen, Queen Beatrix, abdicated the throne.

Abdicated means she stepped down—stopped being queen—to let her son take over the throne and become king.

Her eldest son is Willem-Alexander; he was Crown Prince and now is King.

Canada and the Netherlands have a connection.

During World War II, Beatrix’s family lived in Ottawa, Ont., Canada’s capital city, for five years.

Beatrix’s younger sister, Margriet, was born in Ottawa Civic Hospital in 1943.

At that time, a “federal proclamation” was made to declare the maternity (birthing) ward of the hospital “extraterritorial.” In other words, the room in which Margriet was born was declared neutral ground. That’s so the new royal baby would obtain Dutch citizenship through her parents, rather than Dutch plus Canadian (dual) citizenship because she was born in Canada.

The Dutch royal family thanked Canada for allowing them to live in Ottawa during the war by giving Canada 100,000 tulip bulbs. They continue to send the bulbs each year to Canada. The tulip bulbs form the basis for Ottawa’s stunning annual tulip festival.

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News Science

IBM Produces World’s Smallest Movie–Made Of Atoms

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It’s about a boy and an atom.

And it may just be the world’s most impressive stop-motion film.

That’s because the film is made entirely of atoms.

Stop-motion animation is a way of making a movie using still pictures.

One company, a computer company called IBM, has made the world’s smallest—and arguably the most amazing—stop-motion video.

The video features a boy named Atom playing with a “ball” (really an atom) and bouncing on a trampoline. It’s a simple film, but its importance is enormous.

That’s because, rather than a doll, the filmmakers used atoms.

An atom is a microscopic piece of matter. Atoms can’t be seen with the naked eye, or even a normal microscope, because they are too small.

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News Sports

Basketball Player Jason Collins First To Openly Announce He Is Gay

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Jason Collins is a basketball player who played for the Celtics and the Wizards this year.

He’s 34 years old, and he is seven feet tall and weighs 255 pounds.

He is charismatic, intelligent and well educated.

On the court, he is a tough, physical player.

All of those facts describe Collins.

But there is one fact about him that he revealed in Sports Illustrated magazine this week, that relatively few people knew.

Collins is gay.

He is the first male professional athlete, who is still playing a major North American sport, to openly announce that that he is gay.

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